Child badly injured in Austrian ski accident

A nine-year-old girl is in intensive care after she lost control of her skis and crashed through the window of a hut in an Austrian alpine resort.

India Furness was going so fast that she went through a safety net and 'took off' but local police say her crash helmet and eye protection could have saved her life.

Rescue workers found the youngster unconscious and she was airlifted to hospital in Innsbruck where doctors say her condition is serious but not life-threatening.

India - who was on holiday in the Austrian resort of Matrei, in East Tyrol, with her parents and two siblings thought to be from Dorset - began to accelerate as she skied down a piste at the Goldried resort.

Walter Moser, a spokesman for the local police in the Austrian resort, told the Daily Mail: "The snow is extremely icy at the moment. It makes it very difficult to slow down and she seems to have picked up too much speed and lost control as a result.

"What probably saved her life was the fact that she was so well-equipped - she had full eye protection on and a crash helmet when she went through the window. Because of the height and the cold it was a thick therma-glass window."

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